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Urgent Action: Zahra and Ali in Imminent Danger of Stoning!

WLUML has been shocked to learn that there are two individuals at imminent risk of execution by stoning in Iran. In 2012, Zahra Pour Sai and Ali Sai Bashsiz were tried in Tabriz (Iranian Azerbaijan) court, convicted of Zina (adultery), and sentenced to death by stoning. They appealed their convictions, but the appeal was refused and the verdict was confirmed by Branch 7 of the Supreme Court. It is now feared that they are at imminent risk of death by stoning.

Pour Sai’s husband pressed charges of adultery against his wife, and a film of the two (Pour Sai and Sai Bashsiz) engaged in intercourse was submitted as evidence during trial. Zahra had previously stated, and testified in court, that the act was not consensual, and that she had in fact been drugged prior to the act. However, her testimony was dismissed, and the film was deemed to have fulfilled the evidentiary requirements to prove adultery. This is also legal in accordance with part A of Article 265 of the Iranian Criminal Code.

Although in 2002, the then-chief of Iran’s Judiciary (Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi) imposed a moratorium on stoning, and the most recent penal code allows lawyers to convert the sentence of stoning to 100 lashes, it is ultimately left to the discretion of the judge. Both Morteza Fazel and Azizollah Razzaghi, the head and counsellor of Branch 7 of the Supreme Court respectively, rejected the appeal request.

Zahra Pour Sai and Ali Sai Bashsiz’s stoning sentence was recently sent to a special office in the Judiciary for implementation. Sources indicate that it is highly likely that they may soon be taken to a secret location for their sentence to be carried out.

Zahra and Ali are now in imminent danger of being stoned and need your assistance urgently.

WLUML strongly condemns the brutality of execution by stoning, and calls upon the Iranian authorities and Judiciary to overturn this sentence. We also call upon the Iranian authorities and Judiciary to fully and appropriately investigate Zahra’s allegations of rape.

Please help stop this imminent and brutal execution by contacting the Iranian Embassy in your respective countries and the judicial authorities in Iran to demand that the execution is not carried out and the verdict overturned! Please call.